NOVANEWS

Dear friends,

Three items below.

Item 1 is a translation of a letter that was sent to Israel’s Attorney General on December29, 2910. It appeals to the Attorney General to ask the police to investigate those who published and signed the letter from the Rabbi’s wives. The quotations of Nazi laws and writings were inserted already in English.

The translation is followed by background about the letter from 3 sources—IMEMC, Arutz 7 (a far right-wing station), and the Guardian. The Guardian report is especially useful, as it also relates the statistics on Israeli society’s reaction to the Rabbi’s letter forbidding renting and selling of Jewish property to letter. The stats show that racism in Israel is not limited to fundamentalist Jews. It exists in a large part of society.

In item 2 Carlo Strenger analyzes the causes for Israeli racism, and concludes that international pressure is necessary and the lesser of 2 evils to bring an end to the Palestine-Israel conflict.

In item 3 Gideon Levy gives his take of the past year, which decidedly was not a good one.

I had hoped to send this message with information about today’s doings at Bil’in. But apart from a notice this morning in Haaretz that the Army had cordoned off the village, declaring it a closed military zone, have seen nothing. However, a friend who did go today reports that notwithstanding the IOF’s attempts to quash today’s events, 1000 attended, and that Luisa Morgantini was among them.

All the best, and once again wishing us all a better year in 2011 than was in 2010.

Dorothy

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December 29, 2010

To the Attorney General

The Honorable Yehuda Weinstein, Adv.

A request for an investigation of the Rabbis’ Wives Letter

Yesterday Israeli news programs broadcast the following letter by more than 20 Rabbis’ wives:

‘Dear Sister!

You are the daughter of a king, you belong to a chosen people, a holy and precious people, a people of God, We see you in the supermarket standing at the cash register and dutifully serving the customers. We see you performing National Service in the hospitals. Your work is difficult, yet you give of yourself devotedly. People often neglect to say a kind word to you, and your efforts often go unacknowledged.

In places that you work there are also Arab workers. They go by Hebrew names— Yusuf becomes Yossi, Samir becomes Sami, and Abed becomes Ami. They want to be near you. They try to appeal to you and give you all the attention you desire. They know how to behave politely, to compliment. But this conduct is only temporary. They pretend that they really care for you. But the moment that you are in their hands in their village, everything changes.

You can ask tens of girls that have experienced this. They will all tell you that it was all pretense. The moment that you reach the village, your life will change totally. And the attention that you wanted so much will become curses, beatings, and degradation.

Even should you want to leave the village, it will be very difficult. They will chase you and not let you go back to your former life.

Your grandmothers never dreamt that any of their offspring would lend a hand to keeping future generations from being Jewish. For your sake and for the sake of coming generations, and to save you from terrible suffering, we appeal to you and plead with you to not date Goyim [non-Jews—a derogatory term, similar in kind to ‘Kike’ or ‘Nigger’ ]. Don’t date them, don’t work in stores with them, and don’t perform National Service with them.’

The contents of this letter raise suspicion of criminal offence.

Prohibiting Arabs from using Hebrew names,

The prohibiting citizens of Israel of Arab descent from having Hebrew names, and insisting that they go by Arab names so as to identify their ethnicity is reminiscent of the racist Third Reich Laws which forbade Jews from using Aryan names, and forced male Jews to add ‘Israel’ to their names, and female Jews to add ‘Sarah.’

January 5, 1938: The Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names forbids Jews from changing their names.

August 17, 1938: The Executive Order on the Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names requires Jews bearing first names of “non-Jewish” origin to adopt an additional name: “Israel” for men and “Sara” for women.

The Jewish people as a superior and holy people

The sentence ‘you are the daughter of a king, you belong to a chosen people, the people of God’ raises Jews above all others, as being a superior people. This attempt reminds us of other periods when a different people were called a superior race.

Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor of September 15, 1935

(Translated from Reichsgesetzblatt I, 1935, pp. 1146-7.)

Moved by the understanding that purity of German blood is the essential condition for the continued existence of the German people, and inspired by the inflexible determination to ensure the existence of the German nation for all time, the Reichstag has unanimously adopted the following law, which is promulgated herewith:

law, which is promulgated herewith:

Section 1

Marriages between Jews and citizens (German: Staatsangehörige) of German or kindred blood are forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they were concluded abroad.

Section 2

Extramarital sexual intercourse between Jews and subjects of the state of Germany or related blood is forbidden.

Section 3

Jews will not be permitted to employ female citizens under the age of 45, of German or kindred blood, asdomestic workers.

Separation between Jews and Arabs in work places and National Service

The attempt to separate Jews and non-Jews, especially Arabs in places of work and National Service, and doing so on the pretence of ‘danger’ for Jewish women by the seductive acts of Arab males. This approach is designed to remove Arab males from work places where separation is not feasible. This, too, is reminiscent of an article in a Nazi German paper, Der Stürmer, that describes Jewish males as out to entice German girls and the explanation given by the German Chancellor in presenting the Nuremberg laws to the Reichstag.

…Bitter complaints have come in from countless places citing the provocative behavior of Jews….a certain amount of [conspiratorial] planning was involved….[To prevent] vigorous defensive action by the [Aryan] people,[25] we have no choice but to contain the problem through legislative measures….it may be possible, through a definitive secular solution, to create a basis on which the German people can have a tolerable relationship with the Jews.[26] … This law is an attempt to find a legislative solution….if this attempts fails, it will be necessary to transfer [the Jewish problem] … to the National Socialist Party for a final solution (German:endgültige Lösung).[27

In conclusion

According to article 144 A of the PENAL LAW 5737-1977 (as follows) “racism” – persecution, humiliation, degradation, a display of enmity, hostility or violence, or causing violence against a public or parts of the population, all because of their color, racial affiliation or national ethnic origin”.

According to article 144B.(a) ” If a person publishes anything in order to incite to racism, then he is liable to five years imprisonment”.

With reference to the above, please instruct the Israeli Police to investigate all involved in publishing and signing the above mentioned letter whereas the text of the letter is clearly – in our humble opinion – a crime under articles 144A and 144B(a) of the law.

[‘ani’=I, in other words the organization is ‘I am an Israeli’. Dorothy]

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Background

Prominent Rabbis’ Wives Tell Fellow Jewish Women Not To Date Arabs

Saed Bannoura

December 28, 2010

IMEMC

In a letter published Tuesday in the Israeli press, around two dozen wives of prominent Israeli rabbis followed a recent edict by their husbands for Jews to refuse to rent or sell property to Arabs with an edict of their own: that Jewish women refuse to date or associate with Arab men.

The letter includes gross generalizations about Arabs, specifically referencing Palestinians with Israeli citizenship: “There are quite a few Arab workers who use Hebrew names. Yusuf becomes Yossi, Samir becomes Sami and Abed becomes Ami. They seek your proximity, try to appeal to you and give you all the attention you could ask for, they actually know how to act polite, making you believe they really care – but that behavior is only temporary.”

It continues, “As soon as they have in you in their grasp, in their village, under their complete control – everything becomes different. Your life will never be the same, and the attention you sought will be replaced with curses, physical abuse and humiliation.”

The women give no evidence whatsoever for their claims, and Palestinians immediately condemned the letter for its use of “scare tactics, generalizations and outright racist statements”.

The letter also states, “Your grandmothers never dreamed that one of their descendents would, by one act, remove future generations from the Jewish people. For you, for future generations, and so that you will never have to endure the terrible suffering, we appeal to you, begging, pleading, praying: Don’t date them, don’t work where they work and don’t perform National Service with them.”

This follows on the heels of a religious edict issued by the womens’ husbands, who are all prominent rabbis in Israel, in which they claim that the Jewish holy book, the Torah, forbids the sale or rental of property to non-Jews (specifically referencing Palestinians).

The rabbis and their wives are mainly part of a group called ‘Lehava’, which encourages segregation and discrimination against non-Jews in Israel. The group can be traced back to the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who headed an organization called ‘Kach’, which was classified by Israel as ‘terrorist’ for its attacks against civilians. One if the members of that group was Baruch Goldstein, a doctor from Brooklyn, New York, who came to Israel in 1994 to gun down 29 Palestinians praying in a mosque in Hebron.

Over the last several years, anti-Arab sentiments have been on the rise in Israel. A recent study by the Association for Arab Civil Rights in Israel showed that racism against Arabs has doubled in the past several years, and incidents of violence against Palestinians inside Israel are also on the rise.

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Arutz 7 [a very right-wing station]

20 Rabbis’ Wives: Girls, Don’t Date Arabs

Tevet 23, 5771, 30 December 10 06:21by Gil Ronen(Israelnationalnews.com) Twenty rebbetzins (wives of rabbis) sent a public letter to Jewish girls Tuesday imploring them not to engage in romantic connections with Arabs. The rebbetzins warned: “Once you are in their hands, in their village, under their control – everything becomes different. The attention you wanted for yourself will be replaced by curses, beatings and humiliations.”

The rebbetzins instructed girls not to go out with Arabs, not to work in places where Arabs are employed, and not to carry out volunteer national service in such places.

The rebbetzins’ letter joins an earlier letter signed by over 300 rabbis, calling on Jews not to sell or rent out homes to Arabs, and citing intermarriage as one of the negative results of allowing Arabs to move into Jewish neighborhoods. In addition, demonstrations have been held in Bat Yam and the Hatikvah neighborhood in Tel Aviv, which included signs asking Jewish girls to beware of Arab suitors.

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The Guardian Wednesday 29 December 2010 19.28 GMT

Israel Rabbis’ wives urge Israeli women not to mix with Arabs

Letter signed by wives of 27 prominent rabbis draws furious reaction from politicians and religious leaders in Israel

Ana Carbajosa in Jerusalem

A letter signed by the wives of 27 prominent Israeli rabbis urging Jewish women not to date or work with Arab men has drawn a furious reaction from politicians and religious leaders.

Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, said the petition was “part of a wave of racism, which threatens to carry Israeli society away to dark and dangerous places”.

The letter follows the release of a document by dozens of rabbis this month which ruled that Israeli Jews should not let or sell their properties to Arabs. The ruling, signed by some of the most prominent religious leaders in the country, was condemned by the Israeli government, including the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. However, a poll published this week revealed significant support for the rabbis’ position among the Israeli Jewish population.

The letter, by a group of influential wives from the Lehava organisation, states that Israeli Jewish girls should not mingle with gentiles. To that end, the “daughters of Israel” – as the letter refers to the young women – should also avoid places such as supermarkets and workplaces frequented by non-Jewish men.

“There are quite a few Arab workers who give themselves Hebrew names. Yusef turns into Yosef, Samir turns into Sami, and Awabad turns into Ami. They ask to be close to you, try to find favour with you, and give you all the attention in world … [but] the moment you are in their hands, in their village, under their control, everything changes,” the letter states, according to translations published in the Israeli press.

Lehava has launched initiatives in the past to fight against the “assimilation” of Jews. It organised a demonstration this month in which hundreds of supporters protested against the presence of Arab citizens in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv.

Rabbi Mauricio Balter, the president of the Rabbinical Assembly of Masroti, the Conservative Judaism movement in Israel, condemned the letter, saying it was “contrary to Judaism” and showed a “touch of racism and xenophobia”. He added: “Although in Judaism we promote marriage between Jews, we do not consider it a problem working with or having friends who are non-Jews.” The conservative movement is the second-largest in world Judaism but represents only a minority of Jews living in Israel.

A poll published this week showed 44% of Israeli Jews support the rabbis’ ruling this month banning the renting of apartments to non-Jews. The survey, by the Truman Institute of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, also revealed that 48% opposed such a ban.

Israel’s Arab minority makes up more than 20% of the country’s population.

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Haaretz,

December 31, 2010

Paranoid vicious circles

As Netanyahu continues to explain criticism against Israel’s settlement policy as a conspiracy to delegitimatize Israel, hatred turns on a real or imagined enemy – Israeli Arabs.

By Carlo Strenger

The rise of racism and xenophobia in Israel has been a favorite topic among pundits over the last few weeks, and for good reason, because the phenomenon is worrying. The causes have been well-analyzed: the fragmentation of Israeli society, the lack of a common culture and ethos, and of course Israel’s growing international isolation.

This is the type of situation in which right-wing movements flourish: They take the confusion engendered by complex factors, and they resolve the problem by creating a conspiracy theory that explains everything.

When faced with an intractable problem, right-wing politicians single out an easily identifiable group to be the scapegoat. This is the essence of what psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion called paranoid leadership.

This has been true for all societies, and we Jews should know this well. Anti-Semitism rose steeply in the 13th century because of the bubonic plague. At the time, people didn’t understand the real reason behind the deaths: a rise in urbanization. So they developed conspiracy theories, for example that Jews had poisoned water wells.

Similarly, in the 1920s Germans felt humiliated by the Versailles treaty, and their already weak economy could not withstand the onslaught of the Great Depression. As a result, the theory that a Jewish conspiracy had brought down Germany became ever more popular.

In Israel, there are currently two main variations on the theme of conspiracy. Netanyahu’s main story line is that Israel is being delegitimized and that its very existence is called into question. He keeps repeating that the global criticism of Israel has nothing to do with the settlements, nor with the stalled peace process. Since the world doesn’t accept Israel’s existence, it doesn’t matter what Israel does: it will be isolated and under criticism.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Interior Minister Eli Yishai are focusing on Arabs as a fifth column. Each in his own way keeps arguing that Israel is under threat from the inside and from the outside. Since the outside threat cannot be addressed directly, they focus on Israel’s Arabs, arguing that they are threatening Israel’s existence.

For our purposes it is irrelevant whether Netanyahu, Lieberman and Yishai believe their own stories, and what their precise interests are in propagating them. We are interested in the effect of right-wing tactics. The mechanism of explaining everything through conspiracy has one immediate psychological effect: It channels a vague anxiety into hatred focused on a real or imagined enemy.

It creates the temporary semblance of more unity through its mythology: “Our society is in danger, there is an external enemy, and we now need to stick together and fight that enemy.”

In the long run, this type of myth exacerbates the real problems: Netanyahu’s line that the Palestinians and Iranians are the obstacles to peace convinces very few outside Israel. It also doesn’t help that Netanyahu keeps a foreign minister whom most commentators and diplomats (of course never officially ) see as an Israeli Milosevic.

The result is that the international community no longer sees Israel as a partner for peace talks, whereas it does see the Palestinians as constructive; hence the notion that Israel needs to be pressured into a peace agreement is gathering momentum.

This, in turn, is used in Netanyahu’s story line that the world is delegitimizing Israel’s existence. Internally the situation is exacerbated as well. Israel’s Arabs feel more and more alienated by the hatred propagated by seculars like Lieberman and the anti-Arab rabbis.

This closes the vicious circle of paranoia: Anxiety is translated into hatred and suspicion, which disrupts communication with the outside world and internal groups designated as enemies. This leads to further isolation, which in turn raises anxiety even further.

The right of course has no incentive to stop this vicious circle. The higher the anxiety, the more votes it will reap.

Where this will vicious circle end? At this point it is very difficult to see what forces inside Israel could change the paranoid, isolationist state of mind. Politicians are pressured into conforming to right wing demands to fall in line in the face of impending doom, and are desperately afraid to be seen as traitors if they point out that there might be more cooperative modes of action.

Historically, escalation from the right leads to implosion before sanity is regained. This was true for Italy and Germany as it was for Serbia. In these cases, the wakeup call to sanity was triggered by a lost war. In the case of South Africa the international community generated ever higher pressure, until the regime understood that it was no longer tenable.

Not long ago it seemed that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict imposed from the outside would be a catastrophe. Given the alternative, it is sadly ironic that international pressure toward change is now the lesser of two evils.

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Haaretz,

December 31, 2010

The year of truth

At midnight, when the French champagne is flowing like water, perhaps we will understand that next year will be the last year we can still save something, and be grateful the truth came out.

By Gideon Levy

This was (also ) a good year – the year of truth. The year that concludes tonight with a kiss was the year the Israeli masquerade party ended, the year the costumes were torn off and the truth came out. The true face was revealed. This was the year we finally came out of the closet – no more saccharine phrases and hollow talk about justice and equality, no more flowery and superficial words about peace and two states. This year the truth was heard in public, echoing loud and clear from one end of the country to the other, worrisome and depressing.

No one is talking anymore about peace; we even put the “peace process” in quotes this year, to make fun of it, as it deserves. All that’s left of peace this year is U.S. special envoy George Mitchell. And nothing remains of the prime minister’s two-state vision or the majority in the surveys: This year the Israeli government said no, even to a temporary freeze on settlement construction, and the Israelis said nothing.

After this year of truth, no one will be able to claim seriously that Israel seeks peace with the Palestinians, or with the Syrians, who spoke peace but were left unanswered. All the excuses have lost their value – Palestinian terror has halted and there is at least half a partner who is more moderate than any other. Still, we’re sticking to our positions. The truth shouts out: The Israelis don’t really want peace, they prefer real estate.

The inner workings of Israeli society have also been unmasked. The appearance of a tolerant, democratic and egalitarian society has been suddenly replaced by an authentic portrait, one that is terrifyingly nationalist and racist. Rabbis and their wives, mayors and parliamentarians all sang together in a discordant choir: no to Arabs and no to foreigners. In the years preceding this year of truth, racists still used to be excommunicated.

In this year of truth we said unabashedly that Meir Kahane was right. Almost half of Israelis oppose renting apartments to Arabs; more than half favor an oath of allegiance to the state; rabbis’ wives join their husbands in calling on the modest daughters of Israel not to go out with Arabs; a Knesset member says that those who smuggle in “infiltrators,” as migrant workers and war refugees were termed this year, should be shot in the head; and one of his colleagues blames the Russians for Israelis’ drinking habits.

Meanwhile, we proposed a law calling for foreigners who criticize Israel to be expelled if they visit here, a Jaffa school principal does not allow his students to speak Arabic, an activist against the occupation was jailed for taking part in a cycling protest, and a Bedouin-rights activist was jailed for an even longer period for the offense of having an illegal garage.

This is the plethora of reports about a day in the life of the country in the latter part of this cursed year. Such reports were thrown in our faces almost daily. The foreigner is spreading diseases and crime, and the Arab student wants to disinherit us with the price of a two-room rented apartment. We also held campaigns of intimidation and sowing fear of the different and the other that would not have shamed the most dubious regimes of the past. We had disgraceful demonstrations against refugees and Arabs, with the encouragement of part of the establishment and silence from the others, out of which one tune can be heard – a tune of arrogance and nationalism.

This was also the year of Yisrael Beiteinu’s Avigdor Lieberman, no longer a wolf in sheep’s clothing but a neighborhood bully who doesn’t care about the consequences. An attempt to defuse the crisis with Turkey and then, boom! – a blow to the head. Instead of the never-ending peace speeches by President Shimon Peres, this year the foreign minister repeatedly slapped the entire world in the face for us. Not only Kahane was right; Lieberman was too. He speaks the truth, the truth of Israel.

There is nothing like sunshine for disinfecting, so this was a relatively good year. Perhaps precisely this flood of dubious nationalist feelings from the depths of the soul, which had been latent for years, will at long last stir this slumbering nation to action. Perhaps after this year, the minority that thinks differently will finally open its eyes. Maybe when the flames are closing in around us all, we will understand that this is not the society we want to live in. And maybe the world will understand who is involved.

Tonight at midnight, when the French champagne is flowing like water and the French kisses are bestowed on the mouths of our beloveds, perhaps we will begin to understand that next year will be fateful. It will be the last year we can still save something. If a miracle occurs and this does indeed happen, we will be grateful for the year that has passed, the year of truth for Israel.

NOVANEWS

By Phil Giraldi

Violence erupted throughout Europe in 1848, a time that was later dubbed the “year of revolution.” Though the motives and perpetrators varied from country to country and even from region to region, the frequently violent protests sought major changes in the status quo, to include political emancipation and economic reform. The revolutionaries were eventually suppressed by use of military force, but the ideas of national rebirth and political change lived on to resurface in Italy, Germany, and France later in the century.

What drove the revolutionaries was the principle that the old system that had for centuries regulated the lives of Europeans was broken beyond repair. The old land-based economy had produced starvation and the control of the political structure by what amounted to oligarchies in most countries meant that few felt any kind of connection to the state, which was increasingly seen as a taxation machine backed up by the brute force of soldiers. Alexis de Tocqueville described the turmoil in his native France as “society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror.”

How much different will 2011 be? The world’s economies are in danger of sinking, dragged down by a US economy which is on the verge of insolvency. President Barack Obama and his cheerleaders boast of the Administration’s successes, but apart from a badly needed START treaty with Russia, which was clearly in the national interest, there is little enough to show. The US is failing to produce jobs for its people, is awash with debt, and is mired down in two wars that it cannot and will not be able to finish with a third and larger conflict waiting in the wings.

As in 1848, there is a clear division between the people and their leaders. In Europe, opinion polls indicate that the voters want nothing to do with wars like Afghanistan, but the respective governments continue in their folly, even when they recognize that the conflict is unwinnable. In the United States, support for the wars being fought by the White House and Congress is both low and sinking, but no voters had a chance to express dissatisfaction in the November elections because war was not on the ballot and few candidates even bothered to mention it. The media, which should be exposing the lemming-like march over a cliff, is instead a cheerleader for the catastrophe, fully embracing the concept that the United States has some kind of God-given obligation to intervene everywhere in the world and at any time for the good of mankind.

And then there are what Lenin used to describe as the “useful idiots” who grease the wheels of the official narrative machine. Sarah Palin recently paused in her campaign to amass as much money in as short a time as possible to inveigh against Iran in December 23rd’s USA Today. Mamma Grizzly, who in all probability had the article written for her by some neocon hack like Bill Kristol, opens up with “Iran continues to defy the international community in its drive to acquire nuclear weapons” and goes downhill from there. “Israel would face the gravest threat to its existence…Iran’s leaders have repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction”…“a second Holocaust”…“Iran has provided arms used to kill American soldiers”…she is the “biggest state sponsor of terrorism.” Palin advocates crippling sanctions and encouraging the Iranian people to rise up against their leaders.

Puhleeze, Sarah. Everything you write is nonsense. Iran is hardly a role model for the rest of the world, but there is no evidence that it has a weapons program, its leaders have not threatened to destroy Israel, and there is no reliable information indicating that it has colluded to kill American soldiers. Its support of terrorism is pretty much limited to Hezbollah and Hamas, which many would regard as national liberation groups, and neither of which actually threatens the United States in any way, only Israel. Crippling sanctions, including a cut off of refined petroleum products which Palin recommends, would only devastate the economy and hurt the Iranian people while not bringing about regime change.

In all likelihood it would actually strengthen the government. There is no evidence that the Iranian people are about to rise up against their leaders and to invite such action would undoubtedly result in a blood bath. Leave it alone, Sarah, we all know you are a shill for Israel but we have been hearing this song for a long time and it hasn’t gotten any better.

And then there is the Washington Post’s house enabler, David Ignatius. Ignatius is as much a part of the know-nothing establishment as Palin, but at least he majored in something serious in college and writes his own stuff. He is now a born again enthusiast for the Obama foreign policy, asserting that it has been a “bracing” holiday season as the President has been able to “rally support at home and abroad for a strong foreign policy.” It makes one wonder what Ignatius has been using to spike his eggnog.

What does he see? “Strengthening key alliances” and “firmness…in contingency plans for North Korea.” Throw into the hopper a trip to India that was not embarrassing, a trade pact with South Korea that did little for US manufacturers, a timetable for leaving Afghanistan in 2014, “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and the formation of an Iraqi government. Some success – Obama once promised to leave Afghanistan in 2011. On the Middle East Ignatius notes a policy that was “Sadly…undone partly by his growing political weakness.” Meaning that Obama cannot confront the Israel Lobby, though Ignatius is not about to say that in so many words.

Palin and Ignatius are today’s oligarchs and the system they support is every bit as corrupt as any rotten borough in Georgian England. When governments do all the wrong things and then dissemble and rely on a fictitious narrative bolstered by their fellow travelers in the media that has no connection with reality and that is actually hurting the people, isn’t it time for a little revolution? If the peasants and workers of 1848, relatively powerless against heavily armed governments, could do it, so can we. Thomas Jefferson believed that every generation needed a new revolution which he described admiringly as “the spirit of resistance to government,” arguing that “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

Can it be that Obama is a tyrant on the order of the kings and princes of the nineteenth century? He is in fact worse, far worse, because he has the technology and means to monitor and punish every citizen through an acquiescent judiciary and congress, national security letters, military commissions, and Patriot Acts. Guantánamo is still open and Attorney General Holder will undoubtedly be sending more prisoners there in the new year, possibly to include Julian Assange of WikiLeaks fame. If you want to travel on an airplane President Obama even has a machine that can see you naked and if you reject the treatment don’t try to leave the airport because you can be arrested.

And when the president imprisons the innocent or strips someone of his or her rights he can cover up the crime, not through citation of the divine right of kings, but through the state secrets privilege. The United States badly need a change of course, and 2011 will be a good opportunity to see if the American people will take up the challenge and march to the barricades. If they do not, there is evil in the air and we have a long and dreary future ahead of us.

NOVANEWS

30/12/2010

Amira Hass – Haaretz – I don`t know what other option there is in so extreme a situation, in which four million people are being kept under a military regime without democratic rights by a country that is interested in presenting a democratic image. In a situation where there is a blockade and collective punishment of 1.5 million people, can one hesitate at all whether to hold a very minimalist protest in Tel Aviv? It seems to me part of the duty of a human being, the least we can do. The question is not why I need all this mess but why so few people join in.

David Shulman – By now a truly amazing caravan of military and police vehicles have descended upon us; among the several dozen soldiers is Moshe, a portly major in the Civil Administration, which is in charge of arbitrating claims such as these. He knows the case. He approaches Yohanan, and we overhear him say to him in a low voice: “You know this fence is illegal.” But make no mistake. This doesn`t mean the field will be restored to its rightful owner. All it means is that, on some abstract level, someone high up in the Civil Administration has recognized, in a fleeting and perhaps unrepeatable moment, this theoretical truth.

Addameer – In June 2007, as part of its policy of treating the Gaza Strip as an enemy entity following the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, Israel implemented a total prohibition on family visits to prisoners from Gaza. In addition, starting in November 2009, Israel has effectively prevented these prisoners from receiving money from their families to buy basic necessities by requiring that transfers of money be conditional on the physical presence of a family member at an Israeli bank—an impossibility for families residing in the Gaza Strip.

Yitzhak Laor – Haaretz – Here, with the exception of a few enthusiastic young people, there is no struggle. Even the trickle of people refusing to serve in the army has dried up. The politicians benefit from this dead end: It lets them run from microphone to microphone and organize “coalition crises.” The military leadership prattles on about our “damaged deterrent capabilities” like a beggar with his cup. And the rabble are brought into the streets to demonstrate about Jewish virgins.

Richard Silverstein – Tikun Olam – Ali Reza Asgari, Iranian general murdered by Mossad in Ayalon Prison? Did such an agency have an interest in silencing the detainee? And if so, was a death declared a “suicide,” really murder? In the case of the death of a prisoner under special treatment [held by the security services], why it was not within the power of the Prison Service to prevent the suicide or some other form of violent death.

Jonathan Cook – The Electronic Intifada – Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, said the JNF, which has semi-governmental status in Israel, had set a “dangerous precedent” in accepting money from God-TV. “The Israeli authorities are playing with fire,” he said. “This dispute between the Israeli government and the Bedouin is a long one that until now focused on the question of land rights. But the involvement of extremist Christian groups like God-TV is likely to turn this into a religious confrontation, and that will be much harder to resolve.”

Mairav Zonszein – +972 – The decision, according to his lawyer, stems from the fact that Adnan was convinced he would lose the appeal, among other things, because Israel’s General Security Service was expected to submit classified documents that he would not be able to view and therefore not be able to refute – effectively barring him from due process in making a case in his defense. Furthermore, he argued, the legal proceedings would constitute recognition of the court’s authority and would set a legal precedent for more Palestinians like him to be expelled on the same grounds. Rumors have been going around that the GSS has composed a list of a few hundred Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem to be targeted for similar expulsion orders

Ilan Pappe – Mondoweiss – The drums of war are heard again in Israel and they are sounded because once more Israel`s invincibility in is question. Despite the triumphant rhetoric in the various media commemorative reports, two years after `Cast Lead`, the sense is that that campaign was as much of a failure as was the second Lebanon war of 2006. Unfortunately, leaders, generals and the public at large in the Jewish State know only one way of dealing with military debacles and fiascos. They can be redeemed only by another successful operation or war but one which has to be carried out with more force and be more ruthless than the previous one with the hope for better results in the next round.

Jesse Bacon – The Only Democracy – While I was away on vacation, four cases of the continuing slow death of Israeli democracy occurred. Taken together, they represent a good spectrum of the responses to democracy activists by Israel, all negative. First, Matan Cohen, Israeli-American activist, member of Young, Jewish, and Proud, and one of the people behind the push for divestment at Hampshire College. He attempted to return home as he often does. He was taken aside on December 17 by Israeli security’s “Jewish division” and accused of “hostile terrorist activities,” ie nonviolent organizing.

Ir Amim – Ir Amim sharply condemns the decision to stipulate the eviction and sealing off of Beit Yehonatan on the eviction of additional Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, and calls on the Israeli authorities to come to their senses and apply sound judgment in the most sensitive area of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On December 24, the Raipur district additional sessions court sentenced for life civil rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen, our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, trader Piyush Guha under IPC, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and UAPA implicating them in false cases. The life sentences were pronounced by B.P. Verma under IPC section 124 (sedition), 120 B (conspiracy) and many other kinds of sentences were pronounced under various sections of CSPCA and UAPA. The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta was pronounced on the same day by O.P. Gupta. Both these judgments are the latest additions to the huge cache of anti-people, fascist repressive measures of the Indian ruling classes.

Sentencing for life our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, Binayak Sen, a doctor who had dedicated his life as a doctor serving the poor people selflessly, a prominent civil rights activist and the vice-president of PUCL and Piyush Guha, a trader belonging to Kolkata is the most shameless thing for the rulers to do even while boasting that this is the biggest democracy in the whole world. Opposing the repressive policies of the government, the fascist Salwa Judum, raising his voice for the repeal of the black law CSPSA and standing in support of the just peoples movements are the ‘crimes’ committed by Dr. Binayak Sen for which he has been punished with life sentence.

When he was arrested in May 2007 and kept in jail for two years, immense protests were held and severe condemnations were issued by democratic sections, medical community, Nobel laureates and many others in India and abroad. Pronouncing this sentence ignoring all this can only mean that the fascist rulers are without any scruples or embarrassment issuing a threat to all the democratic, progressive and patriotic sections of our country. If responding positively towards people’s issues in a legal, democratic manner, serving the people sincerely and criticizing the anti-people policies of the government is ‘sedition’, then one can imagine what kind of ‘democracy’ is being practiced in this country and how dangerous it is for the people.

The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta (editor of the Hindi version of ‘A World To Win’ which is published in various languages all over the world) who is languishing in jail since three years with the false accusation that he was participating in Maoist activities is nothing but stifling the Freedom of Press.

Recently, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, DGP Viswaranjan, Bastar IG Longkumer and Dantewada SP Kalluri gang had published pamphlets under the name ‘Maa Danteswari Adivasi Swabhimani Manch’ and had openly declared that they would kill journalists SRK Pillai, Anil Sharma and Yaswant Rai along with democrats Himanshu Kumar and Arundhati Roy and had the audacity to declare that it is indeed their own doing! So much for the ‘rule of law’ harped upon by our rulers day in and day out!

Comrade Narayan Sanyal, a 73-year old veteran communist who began his revolutionary life in 1968 and has dedicated more than four decades of his life for the liberation of the oppressed people, is ailing with various health problems and has been languishing in the dark dungeons of the fascist Chhattisgarh government since five years. The Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Raman Singh terrorist gang is killing Maoist leaders in fake encounters and sentencing many of them to harsh punishments under black laws. They are subjected to physical and mental tortures in the inhuman conditions prevailing in jails.

On July 29, 2010, our party activist Comrade Malati @ Santi Priya and a worker Surendra Kosaria were sentenced to ten years imprisonment using false witnesses under the case that Maoist propaganda CDs were sent to the MLAs. Amitabh Bagchi, a Politburo member of our party and Comrade Kartik, a state committee member of West Bengal, incarcerated in Ranchi jail, were also sentenced to life imprisonment through fast track court in Jharkhand. On October 29, the AP government sentenced Comrade Panduranga Reddy and three others to four years imprisonment in the Alipiri case (attack on ex-CM Chandrababu) using false witnesses.

Many more revolutionary activists and ordinary people are being sentenced to very harsh punishments including capital punishment by the reactionary courts serving the exploiting ruling classes. Comrades Sushil Roy and Kobad Gandhi who are senior leaders and ailing with various health problems and old age; comrades Shobha, Patitpavan Haldar, Pramod Mishra, Vijay, Asutosh, Balraj, Chintan, Biman, Bidhan, Chandi Sarkar, Balganesh, Jharkhand Abhen’s Jeetan Marandi and thousands of other comrades are denied bail, being implicated in false cases one after another and made to languish in jails for years together. In West Bengal, Comrade Swapan Das arrested under UAPA was denied health care in Jail and became the first martyr of this draconian law.

The UPA government bent on selling our natural and human resources to imperialist MNCs like Vedanta and to comprador bourgeoisie like Tata, Essar, Jindal, Mittal etc has declared CPI (Maoist) as the biggest internal security threat as it is standing in their way offering stiff resistance to this unlimited loot. As part of this, the government is carrying on vicious foul propaganda using its propaganda machine.

Since August 2009, in the name of Operation Green Hunt the central and state governments are resorting to brutal attacks on the revolutionary movement and particularly adivasis are being massacred by deploying millions of police and paramilitary forces in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and other states. This offensive is carried on under the guidance and full support of imperialists, particularly the US imperialists. The exploiting rulers are using every means at their disposal to portray our party which is fighting with the lofty aim of establishing people’s government of democratic classes basing on the unity of worker-peasants by overthrowing the imperialists, bureaucratic comprador bourgeoisie and the feudal classes, as ‘terrorist’ and ‘traitor’.

Why are the ministers, political leaders, big bourgeoisie and their brokers, the real traitors who are amassing billions of rupees in scams and stacking them in Swiss Banks shamelessly roaming in the corridors of power not booked under SEDITION? Why are all those criminals who perpetrated and facilitated the Bhopal Gas Tragedy not called CONSPIRATORS? How could striving for the liberation of the toiling masses become SEDITION? How could democrats who raised their voices and pens in support of people’s movements be called CONSPIRATORS?

These sentences are nothing but a part of the bigger conspiracy of the ruling classes to eliminate all kinds of hurdles to their anti-people, unpatriotic and immoral neo-liberal economic policies. This is an alarm signal that fascist repression would intensify further in the near future. These judgments are an eye opener for those who believe and get deceived innocently that there is still some semblance of democracy in this country.

Though the overt statements of the ruling gang declare that Maoist movement is their prime target, what is happening in reality is a fascist onslaught on progressive and democratic forces who wish for the welfare of the people and aspire to protect the interests of our country vis-à-vis the imperialists. Our party is appealing to the people to stand united against this offensive and defeat it through a determined fight.

The comprador governments are resorting to suppression of people’s movements and nationality liberation struggles using black laws like UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA following in the footsteps of the US government which promulgated black laws like the Homeland Security Act. The reactionary legal system which had never bothered to book or sentence the saffron terrorists who had killed many innocent people in the Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and Ajmer Sharif bomb blasts or the scamsters and political gangsters involved in scams like 2G Spectrum (worth 1,76,000 crores of rupees), Commonwealth games, Adarsh housing society, Karnataka lands and dozens and dozens of other scams are eagerly sentencing revolutionaries, people’s leaders, democrats and activists of national liberation movements in Kashmir and North-East.

The CPI (Maoist) Central Committee is appealing to all democratic, patriotic forces, national liberation activists and to all civil rights activists, organizations, students, intellectuals, teachers, writers, artistes, doctors, lawyers, media friends, workers and peasants to come out on the streets condemning and opposing these judgments delivered through the reactionary legal system by the collusion of the UPA government at the centre and the BJP government in Chhattisgarh. We appeal to all of you to build united and militant agitations demanding the immediate repeal of UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA.

We appeal to all the progressive, democratic and revolutionary organizations, communities and individuals of various countries to condemn in severe terms this criminal act of the Indian ruling classes and express their vigorous protest in various democratic struggle forms. In the past the international community stood in strong solidarity with the Indian people’s movements and had condemned the arrest of Binayak Sen and demanded his immediate release. Now the time has come for it to play this role more solidly.

Our party calls upon the people to observe protest week all over the country from January 2 to 8 against these judgments by creatively taking up various protest activities including press conferences, statements, dharnas, rasta rokos, meetings, protest rallies, processions, signature campaigns, wearing black badges, waving black flags, burning of effigies etc., and to take up legal battles condemning severely the anti-people, traitorous and fascist policies of the ruling classes.

Our party is calling upon all our ranks, PLGA forces and revolutionary mass organizations to take up various protest forms on this occasion by mobilizing vast masses.

Our Central Committee is making it very clear that no call for bandh is being given as part of this protest week and is requesting the people and media not to believe the deliberate propaganda of the police to portray this as a bandh call.

NOVANEWS

As we close a year in which our country,our country, has aided in the slaughter of innocents; we ask: What were the Israeli commandos thinking when they boarded the Gaza-bound freedom flotilla and killed ten people?

When Israel killed a young American peace activist, Farrakhan Dogan? Knowing well this killing would have the almost unimous support of the U.S. Congress and President Obama.

More importantly we say: Not in our name, Mr. President.

Israel is no friend of ours.

When a Palestinian loses his home to bulldozers; when Israel imprisons and slaughters Gazans, we say: No more, because:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

– John Donne
Meditation XVII

NOVANEWS

“Among the recipients of U.S. military and economic aid and diplomatic support, Israel occupies a unique place. Israel is generally portrayed by the U.S. mass media as the victim of terrorism. (…) Its own role as a major perpetrator of state terrorism is consistently downplayed

or ignored. (Edward Herman, Excerpt from The Real Terror Network, South End Press, 1982)”

“The Israeli prime ministers: 1-Menachim Begin took part in terrorist acts in the 1940s, including the attack on the King David Hotel which killed 91 people. 2-Yitzhak Shamir was the operations commander, and later leader, of the Stern Gang, a terrorist group which was responsible for a string of political assassinations. 3-Ariel Sharon initiated the Sabra-Shatila massacre in which between 1000 and 3000 people were murdered, and led a terrorist campaign against all Palestinians living in the occupied territories… Between 1948 and 2007, U.S. assistance to Israel amounted to $98 billion, of which 60 percent was military assistance and 40 percent economic assistance.”

“Furthermore, there is no need for it. We ought to call for sanctions against the United States! If the US were to stop its massive support for Israel, it’s over. (Noam Chomsky)”

“The U.S. Government and media bias on terrorism in the Middle East: It is simply extraordinary and without precedent that Israel’s history, its record —from the fact that it is a state built on conquest, that it has invaded surrounding countries, bombed and destroyed at will, to the fact that it currently occupies Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian territory against international law— is simply never cited, never subjected to scrutiny in the U.S. media or in official discourse, never addressed as playing any role at all in provoking terror. (Edward Said in The Progressive; May 30, 1996)”

“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves; politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. (David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.)”

“I imagine that if I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would, at some stage, have joined one of the terror organizations. (Ehud Barak, Israeli general, and Prime Minister 1999 – 2001)”

“What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived. (…) There is no more Palestine… Finished. (Moshe Dayan, Israeli general, 1956)”

“For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms. After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to ‘reason’ and has suggested ‘negotiations’. This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression. The aggression committed by Israel must be condemned, not only because no state has the right to annexe foreign territory, but because every expansion is an experiment to discover how much more aggression the world will tolerate. (Bertrand Russell, 1970)”

“The so-called ‘Palestinian autonomous areas’ are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system. (Nelson Mandela)”

“The reason that Israel has been able to appropriate Palestine unto itself with American aid and support is that Israel controls the explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At least 90% of Americans, if they know anything at all of the issue, know only the Israeli propaganda line. Israel has been able to control the explanation, because the powerful Israel Lobby brands every critic of Israeli policy as an anti-semite who favors a second holocaust of the Jews. (Paul Craig Roberts, 2007)”

“Yesterday’s South African township dwellers can tell you about today’s life in the Occupied Territories… More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail… If apartheid ended, so can the occupation. But the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction. (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his work against apartheid in South Africa)”

“But in my opinion, the Jews have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism… Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine? (Mahatma Gandhi)”

“The main danger which Israel, as a ‘Jewish state’, poses to its own people, to other Jews and to its neighbours, is its ideologically motivated pursuit of territorial expansion and the inevitable series of wars resulting from this aim… No Zionist politician has ever repudiated Ben-Gurion’s idea that Israeli policies must be based —within the limits of practical considerations— on the restoration of Biblical borders as the borders of the Jewish state. (Israeli professor, Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of 3000 Years.)”

“You have to remember that 90 percent of children two years old or more have experienced —some many, many times— the Israeli army breaking into the home, beating relatives, destroying things. Many were beaten themselves, had bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had these things happen to siblings and neighbours… The emotional aspect of the child is affected by the lack of security. He needs to feel safe. We see the consequences later if he does not. In our research, we have found that children who are exposed to trauma tend to be more extreme in their behaviours and, later, in their political beliefs. (Dr Samir Quota, director of research for the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, quoted in ‘The Journal of Palestine Studies’ Summer 1996, p.84)”

“All Jewish settlements in territories occupied in the 1967 war are a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, which Israel has signed. The Geneva Convention requires an occupying power to change the existing order as little as possible during its tenure. One aspect of this obligation is that it must leave the territory to the people it finds there. It may not bring its own people to populate the territory. This prohibition is found in the convention’s Article 49, which states, ‘The occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’ (John Quigley, Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice)”

“Following are some excerpts from the U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices… 1988: Many avoidable deaths and injuries were caused because Israeli soldiers frequently used gunfire in situations that did not present mortal danger to troops… IDF troops used clubs to break limbs and beat Palestinians who were not directly involved in disturbances or resisting arrest… At least thirteen Palestinians have been reported to have died from beatings… 1989: Human rights groups charged that the plainclothes security personnel acted as death squads who killed Palestinian activists without warning, after they had surrendered, or after they had been subdued… 1991: [The report] added that the human rights groups had published ‘detailed credible reports of torture, abuse and mistreatment’ of Palestinian detainees in prisons and detention centers. (Former Congressman Paul Findley, Deliberate Deceptions.)”

“It is no longer my country: For me, this business called the state of Israel is finished… I can’t bear to see it anymore, the injustice that is done to the Palestinians. All kinds of scum coming from America and as soon as they get off the plane taking over lands in the territories and claiming it for their own… I can’t do anything to change it. I can only go away and let the whole lot go to hell without me. (Israeli actress Rivka Mitchell, quoted in peace movement periodical, ‘The Other Israel’, August 1998)”

“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French… What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct… If they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs… As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Palestinian resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. (Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in ‘A Land of Two Peoples’ ed. Mendes-Flohr.)”

“In general international law, the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or his rights of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than the Jews. (…) Thus, the claim of the Jews to the land of Israel cannot be a realistic claim. If all nations would suddenly claim territory in which their forefathers had lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse… (Professor Erich Fromm, a noted Jewish writer and thinker)”

“America — An impartial mediator? America’s credibility as mediator had long been questioned by Palestinians, and with reason. ‘The Palestinians always complain that we know the details of every proposal from the Americans before they do’ one Israeli government source told The Independent recently. ‘There is good reason for that: we write them.’ (Phil Reeves in The Independent, UK, 10/9/2000)”

“Lockstep U.S. Media tell some of the facts but not the truth: Rarely do American journalists explore the ample reasons to believe that the United States is part of the oft-decried cycle of violence. (…) Within a period of days, several dozen Palestinians were killed by heavily armed men in uniform —often described by CNN and other news outlets as ‘Israeli security forces’. Under the circumstances, it’s a notably benign-sounding term for an army that shoots down protestors. (…) As for the rock-throwing Palestinians, I have never seen or heard a single American news account describing them as ‘pro democracy demonstrators.’ Yet that would be an appropriate way to refer to people who —after more than three decades of living under occupation— are in the streets to demand self determination. (…) While Israeli soldiers and police, with their vastly superior firepower, do most of the killing… American news stories highlighted the specious ultimatums issued by Prime Minister Ehud Barak as he demanded that Palestinians end the violence —while uniformed Israelis under his authority continue to kill them. (…) Like quite a few other Jewish Americans, I’m appalled by what Israel is doing with U.S. Tax dollars. Meanwhile, as journalists go along to get along, they diminish the humanity of us all. (Norman Solomon, Media Spin Remains In Sync With Israeli Occupation, from FAIR’s Media Beat, October 14, 2000)”

“A benign occupation? Israelis like to believe, and tell the world, that they are running an ‘enlightened’ or ‘benign’ occupation, qualitatively different from other military occupations the world has seen. The truth was radically different. Like all occupations, Israel’s was founded on brute force, repression and fear, collaboration and treachery, beatings and torture chambers, and daily intimidation, humiliation and manipulation. (Israeli historian, Benny Morris; Righteous Victims)”

“Israel is the target of at least 65 UN Resolutions and the Palestinians are the target of none: Aside from the core issues —refugees, Jerusalem, borders— the major themes reflected in the U.N. resolutions against Israel over the years are its unlawful attacks on its neighbours; its violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, including deportations, demolitions of homes and other collective punishments; its confiscation of Palestinian land; its establishment of illegal settlements; and its refusal to abide by the U.N. Charter and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.”

“Any humanitarian looking at the sheer number of innocent civilians who have lost their homes can only condemn Israel’s house demolition policy as a hugely disproportionate military response by an occupation army… It is a policy that creates only hardship and bitterness, and in the end can only undermine hope for future reconciliation and peace. (Peter Hansen, Commissioner General of UNRWA)”

“The majority of these Palestinian children were killed and injured while going about normal daily activities, such as going to school, playing, shopping, or simply being in their homes. Sixty-four percent of children killed during the first six months of 2003 died as a result of Israeli air and ground attacks, or from indiscriminate fire from Israeli soldiers. (Catherine Cook)”

“The paradigmatic example of a ‘crime against humanity’ is what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People. This is where the concept of crime against humanity came from. And this is what the U.N. Human Rights Commission determined that Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian People: Crimes against humanity. Legally, just like what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews. (…) In fairness, you will note that the U.N. Human Rights Commission did not go so far as to condemn Israel for committing genocide against the Palestinian People. But it has condemned Israel for committing crimes against humanity, which is the direct precursor to genocide. And I submit that if something is not done quite soon by the American People and the International Community to stop Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian People, it could very well degenerate into genocide, if Israel is not there already. And in this regard, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is what international lawyers call a genocidaire—one who has already committed genocide in the past. (Professor Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois)”

“Only an internal revolution can have the power to heal our people of their murderous sickness of causeless hatred! (Nathan Chofshi)”

SYMPHONYTURK – 2010

NOVANEWS

30 December 2010

Media reports about the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) being “designated” by Israel have come sooner than expected. They follow closely on the heels of the two besmirched reports written in Israel which described London as the global hub of “delegitimization” of the Zionist state.

The media cite Israeli claims that the PRC is an arm of Hamas and is engaged in “violent activities”; this is a British registered company operated by British citizens being threatened by Israel and its supporters, remember. This takes on a deeper meaning when we consider that the theses of the two “independent” reports have been supported and adopted by Israel’s Ministry of Defence.

This has to be a matter of grave concern and the British government should act decisively to protect its citizens and civil society bodies, enabling them to go about their lawful business in a peaceful and democratic manner within the framework of the law. Such official action is essential, especially after the Israeli secret services used fake British passports to murder a political opponent in Dubai almost a year ago. Indeed, the activities of all those linked to the two reports which have come out of Israel should be monitored very closely.

There are many questions about the Reut Institute’s report, which can only be answered by its authors or supporters; they should be made to do so. The motive of the report is clear; in the introduction, it says; “The objective is simple: Delegitimizing delegitimization.”[2] More precisely, the authors urge the Israel lobby to “focus on negatively branding the other side”. [52] It is no surprise, therefore, that a few days after its release there is a story in the right-wing, pro-Israel media, led by the Daily Telegraph, making wild allegations about the PRC. Its conferences and academic publications are, in the fantasy world of Israeli propagandists, transformed into “violent activities”.

The Reut report calls for a division of roles in this propaganda offensive, between the “Israeli diplomatic missions”, in this case the London embassy, and “local leadership” of the Jewish community; this is of critical importance. [50] “All parties,” says Reut, “will have to leave their comfort zones: Israel will have to let Jewish communities lead the counter-attack in places, such as London, that require nuance and cultural sensitivity; and Jewish institutions will have to allow for innovative thinking, new tools, and aggressive experimentation that usually takes place outside of the established community.”[3]

Britain’s police forces should enquire exactly what is meant by “aggressive experimentation”, especially which has taken place “outside the established community”. Even a generous observer would say that this looks and sounds extremely sinister and is intended to create inter-communal strife in Britain in order to protect the already damaged reputation of an alien state.

Reading the latest Israeli missive denouncing a legitimate British organisation, one might think that these are shadowy groups working in underhand ways. Far from it; pro-Palestinian organisations in the UK, including the PRC, have never functioned below the radar of Britain’s security and anti-terrorism authorities, government and charity regulator. They are well-known organizations led by well-known people; they host high-profile conferences and seminars in the Houses of Parliament with cross-party support; they participate in demonstrations and organise lectures; and it is precisely because of such openness that they have gained popular support not only in Britain but also in Europe.

The Reut blueprint claims to offer an operational strategy to address what it claims is the UK-based delegitimization challenge. Its panacea notes, “The effort should be led and conducted by the [Government of Israel], ideally in coordination with the British government. (This section is not for public disclosure).” [53] Too late. Reut’s devious proposals are in the public domain so that we can see them for what they really are.

Reut claims elsewhere that so-called delegitimization cannot be made to disappear by PR or policy alone; it requires a systemic, structured response but it does not elaborate. Significantly, though, it says, “Effective response will require continuous learning and adaptation based on extensive experimentation, which usually takes place on the edges of the system outside of the traditional institutions.” [48]

The best investment for fighting delegitimization on campuses is, according to the Reut Institute, in hiring outside “movers-and-shakers” to coordinate mobilization work. Who are these outsiders? Again, this is very sinister given that the ultimate goal is to “frame” as criminals and terrorists the pro-Palestinian organizations being targeted.

The Reut Institute report and the allegations against the PRC have to be taken seriously by the British government, although not in the way intended by the Israel lobby. Reut is apparently linked to the Israeli intelligence and military establishment, both of which have questionable records when it comes to human rights and respect for the laws and sovereignty of other countries.

It is obvious that this latest Israeli propaganda campaign and its associated wild allegations against legitimate organisations in Britain are intended to scare pro-Palestinian activists to go on the defensive and reduce their lawful activities. This will not work, nor will it deter the growing number of supporters on campuses, in trade unions and across British society. On the contrary, it will strengthen their resolve and inspire them to work even harder for the just cause to which they have dedicated their lives.

Nevertheless, it remains incumbent upon the British government to look at these reports and see with open eyes the coded threats aimed at British citizens. Then it should take every measure to call to account these who seek to inflame tensions and unrest in British society on behalf of a foreign country, Israel.

Posted in UKComments Off on IS THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT GOING TO ALLOW A FOREIGN STATE TO THREATEN ITS CITIZENS?

NOVANEWS

This is the Press Release…

30th December 2010

St. John’s Church, Waterloo, London to be held from 1st to 11th February 2011

An exhibition of artwork made by children from Gaza caught up in Israel’s 2008/2009 bombardment is coming to St John’s Church in February. Around 50 sometimes heart-rending painted, drawn and crayoned pictures express the children’s reaction to the assault, the deaths and trauma that they witnessed and suffered and the aftermath. Some of the pictures also reveal their dreams of a peaceful Gaza.

The pictures were made both during Israel’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’ and in the following months. They were drawn as part of a programme of Psycho-Social Help for the Traumatised Children, or by children who were specifically asked to set out their feelings for the benefit of Westerners’ understanding.

The exhibition has been put together by Rod Cox who was part of the Viva Palestina aid convoy to Gaza in early March 2009. He stayed on through March and April to work with school children on this project. Younger children, taking part in the psycho-social therapy project, and older children at a girl’s High School were asked to illustrate what they had actually experienced and what they hoped for in the future.

The exhibition contains DVD interview footage with two of the young artists, 12 year old children, Mohammed and Ibrahim, who both witnessed the destruction of their own homes. In Mohammed’s case he saw his father killed and 5 younger siblings and uncles buried alive under the rubble of their home. The interviews serve to personalise the reality of the experience expressed in their artwork.

The exhibition was to travel from Gaza in a van specially painted by the children, but it was impossible to bring the vehicle out. Rod Cox carried the work out himself. The artists are using the Internet to follow the progress of their work around the UK.

The visitors’ book from the exhibition at Waterloo will be made available to the people of Gaza, in the hope that the signatures and messages will tell them that they are not forgotten.

“St John’s is pleased to be able to host this exhibition. It’s part of the church’s commitment to finding a deeper understanding of urgent issues of peace and justice in the world.” The Reverend Canon Giles Goddard.